The growing number of phonecam users has developed a mode of communication by image. Just like sound or emails, the image is transmitted and reproduced by the user's portable equipment. Indeed phonecams or digital cameras usually have a small control screen capable of displaying images. Transmission to a home computer with a larger screen is of course possible.
The images or “electronic postcards” transmitted are created from digital photographs. They can be customized to carry an indication of the sender's personality. They can, for example, be annotated. However, because of modest size of the control interface or keyboard of portable equipment, such as phonecams, the entry of annotations is tiresome.
Devices or methods enabling manual annotations to be combined with images are known. One can refer for information to U.S. 2002/0051262 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,972. There again, relatively sophisticated interfaces are necessary. This includes, for example, a scanner, capable of reading a document bearing the annotations, or a touch screen on which the user writes the annotations using a light pen. An illustration of this is given by U.S. 2002/0051262. However, portable equipment, and in particular equipment intended for the general public, generally lacks these interfaces.
An additional difficulty, which appears at the time of annotating an image, is related to the determination of the relative dimension of the annotation compared to the image and the position of the annotation in the image. This difficulty is also due to the modest size of the control interface of portable equipment. The above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,972 proposes the creation of composite images including annotations. However, it provides for predetermined locations for carrying annotations.
The fact of predetermining locations for the annotations facilitates the operations which the user has to carry out, but reduces the creative possibilities on offer.